JUNKY
September 10th, 2004, 08:39 AM
SLing, sorry for not posting earlier -- just been busy lately.
You have 2 basic roads you can go down depending on exactly what you have in mind:
1.) you can go with something like the hobbyzone Aerobird or Firebird series - generically refered to as "park flyers" they are kinda looked at as toys by most R/C enthusiasts, but that shouldnt mean they aren't fun to fly - they're electric, and can be flown in a area the size of a baseball field or football field. Most of them don't have aileron controls (flight surfaces on the wing that control roll rate) and while they aren't aerobatic monsters, they do teach good stable flight control principles. The big negative is that they are pretty much non upgradeable, and the electronics that come with them are all integrated into the plane, so if you fly one ofr a month or 2 and decide to move up to a nitro powered plane, none of the hardware will transfer over.
2). Now the other option would be to buy/build a true nitro powered trainer to learn to fly on. The biggest consideration here is do you have several acres to fly off of on a regular basis? R/C isn't toy planes, they need room, and yeah, a bit of $$$ to keep your addiction funded. There are several dozen different trainers out there, and all are very similar in their purpose - they teach you the basics, they are stable, usually have self recovery traits built into their design and are sturdy. My trainer was a hand me down that has bounced through no less than 4 members of my local club - it was scratch built buy one of the older members years ago, and is a great plane to this day.
Oh, and there are all kinds of ins and outs to the hobby that you need to be taught, cause learning it on your own gets really expensive, really fast. In Helena, I find one AMA chartered club listed:
HELENA FLYING TIGERS
District: IX
NUmber: 403
Type: Radio Control
Contact Information:
Contact: FRANKLIN C FLYNN
Phone: 406/458-9008
Email:
[email protected]
Address: 1495 SHIRLEY RD
HELENA, MT 59602-6638
go here: http://modelaircraft.org/templates/ama/clubsearch.aspx and search for other clubs in Montana -- others may be near you too. I don't know the local geography that well.
Hook up with the local club - find out where they fly, find out when they normally fly and ask if you could just come out and check it out (not all clubs are public). If so--get out there and watch. Find someone to bounce questions off of. Having people who can help you learn is way more important that the particular model you fly.
As far as planes, there are 2 basic styles of balsa aircraft kits - ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) , or a true kit that comes in a box, as a bunch of pieces of balsa and lite ply that requires you to assemble, cover etc --- to get you in the air fastest, with no basic experience, I recommend the ARF. Arf's come with all major components assembled and covered, like the wing, fuselage, tail feathers, etc - you still have to do assembly on the ARF - they usually look like this out of the box:
http://www.giantscaleplanes.com/Extra300_65/Extra300_65_1th.jpg
you still have plenty of screws to turn and glue to be applied, without having the chance to really screw up the general assembly. A trainer needs to be properly assembled to fly stable, or else it's going to be way more of a handfull to fly than a beginner needs to deal with.
To answer your basic question about $$$ range. LOL -- like spark said -- you never will have enough. But initial investment, if you buy everything new, expect to pay about $300-400 for your setup. The great thing about that is that some of that cost is support equipment that you will use on all airplanes you own, so it is deferred a little.